Experts meet to help save threatened fish

Ecologists are meeting on Stradbroke Island off Brisbane this week to search for ways to restore lungfish, golden perch and other native freshwater fish populations.

Griffith University spokesman Dr Nick Bond says a range of pressures since European settlement has contributed to a decline in their numbers.

Dr Bond says the three-day workshop will explore issues such as the effects of introduced species like carp on natural food supplies.

"We're very interested in trying to understand if you like, if you look at some of the historical evidences of fish abundances for example, what the energy demand of those populations would have been," he said.

"Whether or not the changes in river flow regimes ... whether or not the energy base is still there to actually support the abundances that used to occur."

Dr Bond says a number of species are listed as threatened.

"We know quite a lot about the myriad of impacts that have occurred on those rivers, so things like flow regulation, habitat loss, invasive species," he said.

"There's been arguably fairly little in the way of holistic modelling to try and understand which of those myriad factors might actually be the most critical one to address in terms of restoring abundances."